


Growing pains

by blueberry_absinth



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Chloe is distracted, Chronic Pain, F/M, Growing Pains, Lucifer doesn't need any dramatic backdrop, Lucifer getting his wings back, dramatic moulting, his wings provide it nicely, phantom limb - Freeform, some allusions to Good Omens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 11:04:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9120853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry_absinth/pseuds/blueberry_absinth
Summary: In which Trixie gets a dog, Lucifer is confused, and Maze is just done with everything.Lucifer secret Santa for sugarholictv on tumblr.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Lucifer secret Santa for sugarholictv on tumblr.  
> Sorry for being so late, but hope it's close to what you're looking for, this monster kept growing and I had to stop it at some point! 
> 
> Unbeta'd for now.

In retrospect Lucifer should have expected it.

The Detective has been born with tremendous powers of observation, and for some reason, she has stuck with him for so long now that the two have become partners, finely attuned to minute differences in their dispositions.

One could even say she detects everything.

The station is bathed in impersonal yellow, and Lucifer vaguely wonders if it’s an aesthetic choice or if an interior designer walked in accidentally, and the officers refused to let him go until the whole thing was renovated. Considering the personages in the station, the latter is more likely.

Not that the Detective isn’t gorgeous under any lighting, even the distant harshness of the fluorescent lights from the interrogation rooms, but Lucifer suspects he’s biased.

Lucifer really isn’t feeling it today though.

While in general he’d be beside himself with joy to be working with her, a small problem arose in the early hours in the morning, ending in an early closed party, something that deserved crying about.

Ever since he got rid of his wings, first by cutting them off, and then by setting fire to them, there has been a phantom pain clinging to his back, where the scars still marked his skin.

It’s bearable most days, but there are times when he can barely concentrate on anything but not boiling the metals in the buildings surrounding him, and frying humans in their own fat.

“Lucifer?”

In his pains, he hasn’t noticed her finishing her talk and moving over to him. Now she is staring at him and his left hand massaging the opposite shoulder, openly suspicious. Dang, there goes trying to hide it from her.

“Detective, finally done and dusted with the lover’s quarrel? Let’s—“

She interrupts him before he can make a smooth transition.

“Lucifer, are you okay?”

She doesn’t understand, that much is clear, from the way she slightly inclines her head to the side, confusion written on her features. She’s seen only half the story, and if there ever was something certain about Chloe Decker, it is that she will pursue it till the end.

“Y-yeah,” he all but stammers, the discomfort in his body bleeding away into an awkwardness in his otherwise silver tongue.

“You sure? You don’t look your usual—” she waves her arms around her in a frankly adorable interpretation of what he usually acts like, “yourself.”

He rubs his shoulders and somehow manages to not make it look like a nervous gesture.

“It’s just a bit of a situation, really, but everything is fine!!” he rushes the words out while still rubbing aimlessly on his shoulder, pain a constant distraction.

“You’re in pain,” her face looks stricken, and he takes a moment to appreciate her concern for him, without trying to dwell on what that means.

“Well, it’s nothing really, I get these quite often, because my upper back is not what it used to be—“

“Why haven’t you told me?”

The Detective is staring at him, unblinking, and for once Lucifer almost stumbles over his words.

“Well, I didn’t think it was important enough to warrant your attention, Detective,” he smirks at her, the kind of smile that usually terrifies people but only makes her roll her eyes.

This time it’s different though. Her eyes are wide and surprised, icy blue way too reminiscent of Heaven on a winter morning, and her whole body language screams concern.

“Detective?” Lucifer prods, almost hesitantly, because this partnership and tentative friendship that they have against all odds is still so very new, and he doesn’t know what to do with it once they leave their comfort zones, doesn’t know what can make or break it or if there are things he needs to say that will break their relationship, but also morph into something better. He really doesn’t know.

The Detective sighs instead, and rakes her eyes all over his body, before resting on his shoulders. Being under her scrutiny is enjoyable, Lucifer finds out.

“I’d appreciate it if you told me things like that. We’re partners after all,” she swallows the word ‘partner’ weirdly, “So if you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your upper back?”

_My wings tore through the vacuum of space at a speed light could only dream of. Remember that galaxy with the split arms you showed your small human the other day? All me. They’ve never been the same ever since. I also cut them off recently and set fire to them, because I wanted to stay here, in this lovely city, with you lovely humans. But I still feel them on my back from time to time, even though they are gone, and they are heavier than I remember._

“Overusing the muscles, I believe.”

The silence from behind him tells him she doesn’t believe him one bit, but doesn’t say anything, just moves closer and starts poking and prodding at his shoulders.

Lucifer struggles not to wince. 

“Fine then, I know how to deal with that,” after a bit she puts down all the documents she was holding on the desk and takes off her coat.

His eyebrows go up and down suggestively as she does that. She just rolls her eyes and cracks her fingers.

“Take off your jacket.”

“Oh,” he grins, “getting ahead of yourself, Detective? At work at that—“

“I’m doing you a favour,” she sighs, as she throws the coat on a nearby chair, “we’ve got a long day today ahead of us, and it won’t be good for you to be in pain the whole time. So please trust me.”

With little to no input from his actual brain, he turns around, and presents her with the clothed expanse of his back. Once upon a time, he accidentally showed her his scars too. Of course, he trusts her.

She runs her hands all over his shoulders and shoulder blades at first, the light dusting of palms and the soft press of finger pads against his skin. Her skin is warm through the fabric of his shirt, against all possible logic.

It’s pleasant and nice and easy and as though through placebo, the pain dulls down to a bearable throb, but when she digs her fingers in his flesh, he yelps.

“You alright?” comes her voice from behind him, and maybe it’s because he can’t see her face, but her concern is bloody obvious.

“Y-yeah, I’m good,” he chuckles, “It’s actually good. You’re good, Detective.”

He can hear a scoff from behind him, and an ‘obviously’ before her fingers continue to do their thing.

She alternates between rubbing his skin softly and pressing down on the sore spots, and, honestly, it feels better than being in Heaven. The tension that has been building up in his shoulders, as well as residual century-old strains ease of his back under her ministrations.

When her hand digs into a particularly knotted spot on his back and works it loose, Lucifer outright moans.

If he were a lesser man, he’d be embarrassed to death. Except Lucifer is the actual Devil and a lecherous man incapable of having a nervous thought.

“Detective, if I knew you could do these things with your hands, I would have—“

She presses down on another particularly nasty spot, and he all but yelps.

But overall her hands are gentle and work their magic until there’s a completely different and much more enjoyable throb echoing through his whole body. He’s warm, he’s happy, there’s no more pain, and he doesn’t want to move anymore.

“Thanks, Detective,” he mutters, “You are very kind.”

The Detective is looking at him, her eyes shining with, well something he doesn’t have the words for /yet/. If it were possible, he would wager that she has noticed his slip-ups.

“No problem, glad I could help. Put on a heating pad on it once you get home, and you might want to look into getting a professional massage now and again.”

She gathers the documents she left on the desk before, and manoeuvres past him to go downstairs.

Maybe it is the station’s bad lighting, or Lucifer’s weird brain, but he is sure her face is more flushed than usual.

Ah well, the AC doesn’t seem to be working.

As he shrugs his jacket back on, he lets himself think about the complicated bits of their relationship, and follows her out. When being close to her is so nice, why did his body react as though it’s something incredibly embarrassing?

As they make their way downstairs, he notices something glistening a pearly white in her hair. Feeling mischievous, he runs his fingers through the strands, and his hand comes away with something in it.

“Detective, I do believe you’re getting grey hairs, whate—“

He chokes on his words once he sees what he’s holding. It’s an angel’s feather, a soft and otherworldly thing. And completely unbelievable!

“What are you saying Lucifer?” Chloe asks as she stares out at her gorgeous hair, but the feather is already gone, hidden well in his breast pocket. 

“N-nothing.”

He scowls, though, and she isn’t convinced, but leaves him be. He follows her silently, as they go through the murder of the day, and if there’s any doubt left that he has anything on his mind, she doesn’t bring it up.

Lucifer isn’t stupid. He hasn’t sensed any of his brothers around him, and judging from the size of the feather, it should be one of his baby brothers, a cherub at least, but they are even worse at hiding their presence.

Well, his life today has been blessedly angel-less and the feather was very obviously divine, so that could mean only one thing. And he has never even dreamt of such a situation, nor known a precedent. 

 _Shoot_.

…

He remembers his words, His fated words, the reality of his existence shattered.

His words and Lucifer was flying, cutting through the clouds, grasping at empty condensation, trying to hold onto something, the concept of up and down and gravity suddenly solidifying way too fast in his mind to make sense of it right away.

Hell was down, deep down, his new home, and he was plummeting to a fate he had no say in.

Contrary to later popular belief, he didn’t lose his wings that day. They were dishevelled and torn from the velocity of his fall, and the feathers never regained the same pristine pearly glow they used to have back when he was the Favoured Child. But they survived, just as he did.

In Hell, his feathers possessed the ancient hues of parchment, a testament to the /human/ years they had survived despite resistance (or maybe, in spite of it). A contrived metaphour, at best.

Free will becomes obsolete when your Father is the creator of all existence.

On Earth, they reminded him of breakable porcelain.

But they were most beautiful, he thinks, when they lit with the fiery crimson from his cigarette, burning his bridges to the celestial, the occult and the ineffable.

He is pretty much sure he has played right into Father’s hands, an obedient piece in a puzzle that only He could see.

Lucifer had long stopped flying though.

…

“Remind me again why we have to do this instead of fighting crime?”

“Because I have to sneak being a full-time mother into my free time, which incidentally isn’t that much, all with having to take care of an enormous manchild and the whole of LA.” 

“I don’t deny it’s terrible having to look after the little human, but we have murders to solve, Detective!”

“Didn’t I ask you to stop calling Trixie little human?”

“But Detective isn’t that what she is?”

Lucifer grins at the woman in question as she takes the little human’s bag from the backseat of the car. The little human in question follows shortly after, too bright and too chipper for the time of day.

“Heyyy Mooom, why can’t we get a doggie!”

The Detective sighs ever so slightly. Lucifer knows she gets exhausted from her daughter’s nagging, and is always surprised at how patient she is with her. The Detective is truly a great mother.

“I told you now, the doggie will be sad to live in the apartment, because it’s so small.”

“But what if it’s a small doggie and it’ll think the apartment is huge!”

The Detective kneels down to her level, takes her shoulders in her hands and hugs her.

“I promise we’ll think about it ok? You know we also have to ask Maze, right? She has to agree you know, because we live together now. But now you go to school and do well, alright? Otherwise, no dog, okay?”

The spawn just smiles, probably because she knows she’s won the fight.

What a little devil. Lucifer is impressed.

Then again, the Detective wasn’t born yesterday either. She ruffles the curls of the spawn’s pigtails, and okay, Lucifer argues with himself, that is adorable.

“Be good, little monkey, okay?”

 “Yes, Mom!”

The Detective ushers her on, but before she does so, the little human flings herself on his leg. 

“Bye Lucifer!”

The two adults stand in silence as they watch Trixie make her way to the entrance of the school. There’s an oddly uncomfortable feeling in Lucifer’s torso, like his bones are rearranging themselves.

“Thank you, Lucifer, by the way,” she says, still staring back at her spawn’s back. Her expression is uncharacteristically sombre.

“That’s just me,” he laughs; it’s easier to take things lightly than to try to figure out deeper meanings, “Protecting the City of Angels by night, and walking little humans to school by day.”

She chuckles, soft and easy, as they make their way back to the car. They have a long day of police work ahead, but he’s far from disheartened.

While their silence is friendly and easy, borne out of their long camaraderie and work on the field, the Detective starts to fidget by the time they reach the car.

“Lucifer, I—“

She is playing with the car keys, but it soon becomes clear she won’t finish her sentence.

“Yes, Detective?” he whines, carefully aware of his poker face.

She regards him for a moment, lingering by the car door, and he hates that he can’t read her, can’t just ask what the hell is happening in her head. There’s way too much going on on her face. 

“Never mind.”

She gets into the car, but before he can follow, a small feather floats down his eyes and goes for the pavement. Lucifer snatches it, and gets into the car.

But, as he holds onto the translucent fluff, a plan begins to solidify in his head.

…

Maze scowls at him.

“No.”

“Come on,” Lucifer pouts, “I know how much you want to go back to Hell.”

“I do,” she surrenders, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll go back there just because you tell me to. I have a life and a job now, unlike some other people.”

He puts a hand on his chest, mock offended.

“Hit below the belt, will you, Maze?”

She crosses her arms and glares at him. Lucifer knows he deserves this, but they are serving a higher purpose here, higher than his Father to be honest.

“Don’t do this for me, do it for Beatrice.”

She scowls again and grabs at his feather roughly. Lucifer winces.

No respect for the products of his body, that one.

…

If there’s one thing that Lucifer adores it’s that while humans pretty much got the whole omniscient and omnipotent thing pretty much on point with the monotheist religions (even if their words vary), it took them quite a while to put everything down. Even then, their imagination manages to exceed even the ineffable, and the power of their convictions has shaped Heaven, Hell and Earth. Lucifer can almost see why humans are His favourite creations.

What he most enjoys, however, is the mythos that came before the Bible, the intrinsically human stories that didn’t even bother to grant omnipotence to the immortals. Zeus is a bit of a harlot, isn’t he?

And it’s the stories that come before his family’s (‘before’ in human terms) that entertain him to no end.

This is humanity’s proof that they are made in His image, the power of their minds creating more than Dad could have ever imagined, whereas angels stumbled on, blindly following a loose canon.

All peoples of the world, however, have thought about a creature so strong it was tasked, – or punished, – to bear the weight of the entire world. The world’s currently obsessed with ancient Greek mythology and Lucifer doesn’t understand why – ancient Greeks were saucier than modern goody-two-shoes would have you believe. So the most popular one is Atlas, a once proud titan whose shoulders are now permanently heavy from holding the globe. Lucifer kind of wants to meet him, but sadly he lives only in humans’ heads.

He figures he is the equivalent of that in the mythos humans have created surrounding his own family. Or as close as he can get, really.

Father has always weighed the world in black and white, animate and non-animate, good human souls and bad ones. Lucifer has to deal with what is deemed waste /even if he’s met so many gorgeous persons who are stuck there because of a misunderstanding/, hoist it on his shoulders and carry on, pretend he is his Father’s equal, an all-round evil to His all-round good.

Not that anyone would care to admit that. No one cares about the Devil.

(Well, except maybe Mark Twain, a man with a gorgeous moustache and a mind to rival Father’s.)

But it’s way too easy to blame an all-evil creature that’s always out to seduce you into your most carnal desires instead of owning up your mistakes.

He doesn’t miss running Hell, to be fair.

…

Lucifer pours himself a double and goes onto the balcony.

The heavens stretch out above him, polluted, gorgeous and silent as ever. Somewhere up there his Father is sitting there, smiling that infuriating, omniscient smile, but he’s also more of a concept, stuck in his head, made tangible from his unwavering faith, that despite all is still wedged in his psyche.

“I don’t know what your endgame is,” he chuckles humourlessly, “No one does, don’t they?”

He takes a sip from his beverage.

Nobody answers him, but that's how it's supposed to be for humans which is what he's trying to imitate.

It’s a new whiskey that Mazikeen recommended to him after a particularly nasty job she’d had. The honey yellow liquid tastes slightly sweet as he rolls it around his mouth with the practiced ease of a connoisseur. It burns his throat, but smooths the edges in his body to a dull discomfort.

It’s not much, but at least it’s not wine, seriously, why do people enjoy drinking metaphorical blood?

He stays like that, sipping his whiskey, making a mental list of all the flavours his experienced palette knows by heart, and putting them in order of appearance – vanilla, toffee, lemon, banana, spice and black peppercorns. Overwhelmingly, the bite of alcohol. Another part of his mind, meanwhile, the confusing, awfully human one, is going through the events of today.

Another feather is warm against his chest, tucked away in his breast pocket, a tiny promise for a new hope.

“And I will do everything to go against your plan, you know?”

He never did grow out of his teenage rebellious phase, did he? To be fair, he is the original, so he’s allowed.

But it is tiring, he muses, swirling his whiskey in aimless circles, to fight an endless battle against an ineffable being. Your moves end up His, free will ends up an illusion, and you end up waging a war with no point and no consequence, a bitter nomad in the flow of space and time. Even Odysseus made it home.

There’s an overall sweetness to the whiskey, potent and undiluted by the strength of the alcohol, reminds him too sharply of a certain perfume, and suddenly he has no desire to drink anymore.

“Not that I’ll stop doing this. We’ve done this for too long, you know?”

He downs the rest of the glass, not bothering to savour the taste.

“But seriously though,” he whines, “could I have gone without the moulting?”

…

Once Maze comes back with a hellhound it’s a piece of cake to introduce the puppy to Beatrice.

In fact, Lucifer had been roped into babysitting duty, he has no idea how that happened, there was a lot of puns from the Douche, and then the Detective looked desperate when she asked, and how do you even say no to that, and then he was being herded in the direction of the apartment.

He is chugging whiskey and whiskey, as the spawn is hopping in circles around him, energetically recreating a scene from—something. A half-empty bottle of Maze’s whiskey stands on the bar right next to him.

Maze glowers – that bottle wasn’t open last she left it, and she was saving it for the next girls’ night out.

“No touching my booze.”

Lucifer stares at her, before hopping off the stool and straightening his coat.

“Rude.”

She only humpfs in his direction and ushers the hellhound in the direction of the spawn.

For her part, the small human screeches like she is in the ninth circle of hell and abandons Lucifer to cannonball herself onto the hound, which isn’t used to this kind of attention (he doesn’t baby his hounds ok?).

Lucifer quiets then, knowing what happens next is essential for the hound's future life. The little human will name it and the name she chooses to give him will be  important in solidifying its presence. He himself knows the importance of the names you choose for yourself, and the names that get chosen for you.

“I’m gonna call him Fluffy,” she exclaims excitedly, and honestly, he should have expected it.

The dog wags its tail, and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but it seems much less bloodthirsty now.

Maze cackles next to him.

“My job here is done,” she says as she grabs her jacket and opens the door, “Now if you excuse me, I’m off to live my awesome Devil-less life.”

Once Maze leaves, Lucifer turns to Beatrice, who, thankfully enough, is too occupied with her new dog now to terrorize him.

“OK, I got you what you wanted, now you have to give me something back,” Lucifer kneels down so he could be on the level of the two tiny creatures. The dog wags its tail, recognizing its former master, but doesn’t move otherwise. It belongs to the Detective’s spawn now.

Just as he says that, Lucifer realises how lonely he must have been before, when he actually believed in this philosophy. Not that he doesn’t, now, not really, but he sees value in non-equal trades.

Beatrice grins at him. He supposes there’s some worth in having your own personal spawn.

“Anything for my bestest best friend.”

“Right,” he sighs, but doesn’t let his smile fall; he should have thought this through, “You’re still growing, right?”

“I grew five inches this year,” she brags, and Lucifer has a headache now.

“Ri-iiiight,” he starts and stops and marvels at his sudden lack of eloquence, but there is little he can say to sugarcoat this or make it sound sane, “Does it hurt to grow?”

There’s a faint throbbing in his back, and he catches the fluffy ticket to Hell before Beatrice can see it. At least he’s learnt now when he’s gonna start― shedding.

The spawn cocks her head, and he immediately regrets his decision. Seriously, what was he thinking just now?

But she should know, right? He was created an adult – or however you would call it, since angels have never been children, – borne out of a divine love (before everything went to shit), and so he has never had to go through the learning curve of childhood or, Hell forbid, adolescence.

It’s hard to explain matters of a family that is not strictly corporeal in human terms.

But he never asked for his wings to start reconstructing themselves, and she hasn’t asked to grow up either, so maybe she can understand that better than himself.

“Sometimes when I am at practice, and I’m stretching it hurts very much,” Trixie answers thoughtfully, taking the question to heart, to Lucifer’s surprise; he didn’t know she did any sort of extracurricular activity. “And sometimes I don’t wana do it, cause it hurts so much, but when I do, I can do my splits just fine, and I’m just so much better—“

“Yeah, but isn’t there a way to do that without hurting ourselves?” he interrupts her before she can start to ramble.

“I don’t know,” she replies, still deep in thought, “You know when I am at school, it’s not nice, but then I know things that even Mom doesn’t know, and—“

Yeah, he is aware of these ‘teaching’ facilities. Terrible establishments, really.

He makes a note to ask her about any other kids who might have been bullying her.

Then she starts babbling.

“Mom always says we never stop growing, but I don’t think she’s right because if she never stopped growing, she will be soooooo much taller now and—“

Forget this, this was a bad idea.

He tunes her out until she finishes a random anecdote about some classmate of hers or so, as he tries to put his own thoughts in order.

But after a moment, Lucifer pats her head with what can be called affection if you squinted hard, and smiles slightly.

“Thanks, you little human.”

Good thing human spawns are never sane to begin with.

Then Trixie jumps on him.

…

“We found him, Mommy! We have to keep him, right?!? We can’t throw him away, they will take him and he will be sad and—“

The spawn chatters away to an exhausted Detective. Maze is lounging on the sofa, nursing a martini at 11 in the morning, and grinning in a way that assures Lucifer she won’t help him. Beatrice is positively glowing, and hugging her new love, the puppy, which was trying to give her face a bath. On this Earth, it appears as a mutt with some Newfoundland mixed in it, but its eyes appear as fierce and as protective as they have been back on Hell.

The Detective sighs deeply, then turns to Lucifer.

“I don’t know how you managed to do that,” she warns, “But I will find out, and I will kill you.”

But she is smiling slightly, and Lucifer has no idea how he manages to keep his smirk going into a genuine grin.

…

Lucifer stares at the spots on his mirror, ignoring the reflection staring back at him.

His razor stands on the edge of the sink, already served its purpose in limiting his scruff to his desired length. His face is as impeccable as ever, and, really, he’s done every part of his beauty routine, more meticulously than usual, if that’s ever possible.

Lucifer knows why he’s loitering instead of going back to a bed that’s been empty for a shockingly long time.

He wants to stretch his own wings, feel the joints popping in a way they never have before. It’s altogether a new experience.

“Never stop growing, huh?”

His mind reaches tentatively to his body, a short neural command that has him more worried than he should be.

His wings stretch out behind him, pathetically tiny.

They are smaller than what he remembers, and, embarrassingly enough, covered in downy fluff, similar to that of a baby bird. Their colour reminds him of the lightest and most expensive of champagnes and just looking at them makes him want a drink.

He used to be so proud of his wings, before he Fell. Before humans broke Light down into its components, Light was a pristine white value, and he was happiest to know only his wings carried Its colour. Maybe they all should have seen it as a premonition to his future ‘sin’ of Pride, but these things are all said and done now, and he finds no use dwelling over them.

But these aren’t his previous wings. Definitely. These are a mockery, a work in progress, which definitely do not involve his Father’s hand, because they are not perfect. They are but a future wreck, furniture owned by a landlord with a tendency to drink and throw things at home.

If anything, they are the handiwork of Lucifer’s body, trying to stitch itself up, now that he is more human than divine, and if there’s anything special to humans, that is their ability to get themselves back up and fighting.

But he doesn’t feel whole again, or any cliché like that. He feels tired, his body wrecked, scars upon scars upon scars still unhealed under centuries of injustice.

However, at the same time, there’s something about them.

It—

It feels like a new beginning.

Maybe.

He is not good with his own emotions, and this isn’t something he can trust Dr. Martin with. Not yet.

For a second, all illusion bleeds away from his reflection, and he almost laughs at the absurd contrast between the fluffy feathers and his charred flesh.

“That’s ridiculous,” he admonishes his own body, but somewhere deep within him, there’s a spark of—something.

His phone vibrates from where it’s propped on the dry side of the sink. He checks the sender and before he can stop himself, his fingers fly over the screen. A text message is sent back.

…

Another whiskey is in his hands and Lucifer tips the heavens this time before swirling his drink and taking a sip. For some reason, he doesn’t feel like drinking alone and the one plus to having a perfect, omnipresent being for a father is that you get company when you want one (and, well, when you don’t, you also get company, but that goes into the pile of shit so).

The sky is dark and cloudy, yet it was coloured an intriguing light purple from all the light pollution of the City of Angels. The clouds hang low like they usually do on the off chance they appear, but it doesn’t feel like it’s suffocating him. The last time they looked like that was on the night of Frank Lawrence’s death.

Chloe catches him wondering whether the sky is more of a plum purple or a grape purple.

The elevator makes a soft ding, and she enters the room just as he turns around.

His hands tighten around the glass, and he is mindful not to shatter the glass, because obviously she would be here when he least wants her. Not that he doesn’t want her, but there are many things going on, and with the police, with his wings, and the amount of opportunities he now has, and the amount of responsibilities, especially to Maze who has always been there—

She smiles a tight-lipped smile, and everything bleeds away from his mind.

“Detective,” he greets her jovially.

Ah well, at least she hasn’t caught him talking to Dad.

“I expected you a bit later on,” he moves from the terrace and into the building, all but stalking on his way to her.

She’s wearing fancier clothes, he notices, a bit more tight-fitting and less comfortable than her usual. Her heels are high enough to make a sound as she moves and a furtive glance tells him that they are doing wonders to her figure.

But her body is standing at an unnatural pose, she’s fiddling with her thumbs and looking down.

Oh.

She is feeling awkward.

“Are you perhaps here because you finally want to take up my offer to show you the finer tastes in life?”

They talked about that ages ago, and she smiles slightly at the memory. Though he enjoys her discomfort, he is also concerned.

“So which one would you like best, huh?

“Lucifer.”

He stops his tirade to look at her.

She seems to be looking for her words, so Lucifer waits for her to do just that.

“Ella told me a long time ago that making sure all this exists defeats the point of believing. She said she doubts so she can believe, alright? But this isn’t about faith or anything else, it’s about you!” she shakes her head and crosses her arms, shrinks into herself. “Sorry, it’s not that I don’t believe you are who you are, but there’s always a part of me that keeps questioning all this.”

He is still frozen at the bar, hand on an uncorked bottle of a nondescript alcohol. That is all very... sudden. 

He knows where this is headed. He knows where this is headed, and the last person to see him had a breakdown.

“Det—Chloe—“

“Nonononono,” she shushes him down, “I want to say this, okay?”

She takes a deep breath and starts again.

“I have trusted you with my life, and I will forever do so. You are my partner, and you’ve proven your worth plenty of times. But I want to give back, make you trust me the same way I trust you! And it’s horrible that I’ve never deserved your trust, but I want you to know I’m here for you, and nothing you say or do will make me go away!”

Something snaps in him, something he didn’t previously know was skewed. He knows it’s barely anything to do with her speech, knows there’s a feather or two flying around them right now, but the timing of his wings’ maturity is too precise for him not to curse his Father.

“Just trust me, please.”

She isn’t moving, but her eyes follow his every move, and he cannot deal with her expression right now, so pleading and vulnerable. He sets down his glass.

_Easy for you to say._

But there isn’t much he can do. She could ask him for the stars, and he would fight each of his siblings for them.

He opens his eyes and takes the plunge.

His wings stretch out behind him, finally fully grown, large but not the largest of the angels, and he suddenly feels self-conscious like never before. Like—like a teenager!

He swallows the bile that forms in his throat, and instead focuses on Chloe. Her face is illuminated by the soft glow of an immortal, yet she’s the one that looks divine. Her eyes are almost comically wide open, astonishment well written all over her features.

But there’s also the soft wonder that comes with a mortal seeing an immortal’s real face.

Lucifer looks down, self-consciousness bleeding into a scared realization.

He knows she is the best one out there, but no one is immune to the pull of immortality, and for once he wants a person not to submit to their desires.

The last mortal that gazed on his wings wanted to keep them all for himself, away from their rightful owner, but even that intense greed has been tame compared to things people have wanted to do to immortal relics over the years.

“That changes very little, doesn’t it?”

He looks up, incredulous, and there she is, framed by the alabaster of his wings. Her face is struck, and the combination of lights playing on her features make her look more a statue than a person. Her eyebrows are knitted together, worry lines connecting the two, and furrowing her forehead, but her mouth is relaxed, bottom lip caught in her teeth thoughtfully. She makes for a sensual image, but he cannot even savour it, as the nerve endings to every centimetre of his skin are on fire.

She is thinking, but she doesn’t immediately hate him.

He hopes, really hopes he’s got better at reading emotions.

“You’re still my partner, aren’t you?”

Chloe smiles her soft smile that he’s sure is responsible for the ice caps melting and for Hell’s exceptionally high temperatures recently, and Lucifer is that close to sending a prayer of thanks to his Father.

“Well then,” he chokes, long and loud and embarrassing and, oh Father, why is he like that to the one creature, immortal or not, that matters? “Would you still like me to show you proper whiskey tasting?”

She nods, still smiling. He turns to the bar, but right as he breezes past her, she stops him with a hand on his forearm.

Lucifer is arguably the strongest creature on Earth right now, and all she needs to stop him is her touch. How pathetic of him, really.

“Actually,” she bites her lips, “That’s not all you have to show me, is it?”

She frames a statement in the form of a question, but the weird warmth of epiphany washes over him. She’s known, she’s always known, always believed him, but there’s no common sense to hide her from seeing the truth now.

The memory of his doctor’s flabbergasted terror at his real face nips at his already tiny confidence.

Well, they’ve reached so far, haven’t they?

He glances back to the sky real quick, in an attention-seeking gesture he will never admit to, and closes his eyes. All illusion bleeds away from him, and it is only when he hears a soft gasp, then a soft sigh.

Once he opens his eyes again, he sees the Detective – Chloe, – looking at him, no less shocked than the doctor was, but there is something else in her expression. An understanding of the fragility of the moment and a silent promise of understanding him.

“Thank you.”

“Are you alright, Detective?” he cocks his head after letting his human skin engulf him once again, “I really should be the one thanking you.”

“Well,” she purses her lips and nods a few small, curt nods; it’s adorable, “Thank you for trusting me.”

Lucifer smiles, but it hurts a little on the edges, and he sometimes really hates the human part of himself, tangled emotions that make little sense, that should be happy, but instead are sad, and not even sad, but a sad kind of happy or a happy kind of sad, and the human being in front of him is so perfect, and so in touch with her feelings, and she really should be fed up with his shit right now, but she is still here, which in itself is a small miracle.

When he doesn’t say anything, Chloe does the lip pursing thing again.

“So, are you teaching me how to do this or not?”

“Right this way,” he laughs, and really, at least he can do that.

She sits on the bar and he pours her a drink like the gentleman he is, and shows her how to savour her whiskey. They barely take it seriously, however, as she giggles while swirling her drink and trying to sniff it properly. As he watches her take a whiff way too close to the glass and take in way too much alcohol fumes that result in her coughing, he realises how silly tasting is.

“I thought the wings will be the dealbreaker, but it might just be the fact you’re pretentious,” she laughs, soft and easy and slightly leaning on him.

The small pang of worry only subsides when she bursts out laughing at his expression.

Lucifer hasn’t really taken a seat yet, because that would mean getting further away from her, and he only wants to get closer now, so it’s a no-brainer to pull her to his side in a one-armed hug.

She flails a little bit, still smiling, as she finds her perfect position against him. That involves a decent amount of clumsiness and awkwardness, and they make the mistake to glance at each other.

And that just does it.

They both start laughing again, tension finally uncoiling from their bellies.

Once their laughter subsides, she looks down into her glass, and he would be worried, because really, around her, he worries so much, but her smile is bashful and more beautiful than the first Dawn he ever saw.

Leaning down is the easiest thing Lucifer has ever done.

Canopied under his wings, they smile into the kiss, as LA’s streetlights wash the rest of the world to yellow. 


End file.
